Wednesday, August 1, 2012

3 Favorite On-The-Go Snacks

Nuts and Chocolate

In my frigerator I have small tupperware containers filled with nuts and chocolate portioned out for the week so I can grab it on the way out to school every morning. I measure out 1 oz of nuts, usually walnuts, and one square of dark (≥90%) chocolate. This snack comes out to 245 calories, which may seem high, but it's extremely filling.

Red Bell Pepper

Low in calorie (30)

Sweet

Nutrition

Easy to prepare and transport. I eat it like an apple.

Banana

105 calories

Sweet

very filling!

Nutrition

Easy to prepare and transport

This list may change (though I doubt chocolate will ever leave my favorite snacks list), but these are the current snacks I'm eating nowadays. I go through fazes of what I like and don't like so I'm sure I'll have a new list in the future.

8 comments:

1. I'm not too worried about fat. 2. We don't agree on what a healthy amount of fat is to eat.3. Nuts are extremely healthy. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257681/?tool=pubmed) Nuts have really good fats, too.

For me, I base what I eat around how unprocessed the food is, how filling it is, and how many calories it has. Nuts have a large number of calories, but because of its high fat and high fiber content, it's extremely filling. There is also a lot of evidence for nuts concerning cardiovascular health and weight-loss.

I don't know how you computed 88%. According to the FDA, the upper limit on fat intake is 65 grams based on a 2000 calorie diet. If we decide to compute the amount for 1600 calories assuming the relationship between fat and calorie consumption is linear, then the upper limit would then become 52 grams. There are 18.48 grams of fat in 1 oz of walnuts. 18.48/52 is 35.5%, not 88%.

I get my nutritional information from a variety of sources including the the FDA, as well as peer-reviewed studies, recommendations from health institutions such as kaiser, and dietitians that I read online (often through a google search, yes). Relying on one source, such as the FDA, is limiting. The FDA told people that "fat" was making them fat- the lipid hypothesis - turned out it wasn't that. They told us trans fat was good, turned out it is killing us. They told us salt is giving us heart attacks- there's evidence to disprove this.

I'm not saying the FDA is evil, just that I take their advice with a grain of salt.

Also, the link I provided in my original comment is a published review of research about nut consumption using PubMed. This is a reputable source for me. Let me quote one part of it for you. "...there is considerable scientific evidence indicating that there are no adverse effects of frequent nut consumption on energy balance or body weight. Some studies suggest that nut consumption might even help lose weight."

I've said it many time before, but when people argue with me about things like eating too much fat from nuts or too much sugar from fruit, my response is this: What obese person do you know that got fat off of eating too many fruits, veggies, and nuts?

Well, I said I was wrong. I googled it earlier after reading your post and (a number of webpages) said 16 grams. When I was looking at the nutritional information on the sun chips I was eating between meals I realized that what I saw on google cannot be consistent with the FDA.

The FDA is a very good source for nutritional information. Just as you ask "What obese person do you know that got fat off of eating too many fruits, veggies, and nuts?" I could similarly ask, "What obese person gets the way that they are when following the food pyramid?" The answer, of course, is nobody.